Traveling Companions

They say that there comes a time when you have to go big, or go home. That time is coming up for the I Am UU project. I have done almost all the work on the project for the last 5 years. For the last two, I’ve put in an average of 45 hours a week, not including Chalica. I have taught myself some graphic design, I read several sermons a week, I’ve built a network of contacts, and I’ve written 43 blog posts and all the other content on IAmUU.net over the last year and a half. It has allowed me to feel like I am contributing something to the wide world while I’ve been a caretaker for my mother (who has recently passed) and my kids (two of whom have special needs). It has been an honor to touch so many lives, and one I absolutely do not want to give up.

What I would like to do is to learn how to do it all better. I want to be able to do the work offered by the UUA to be the religious educator that the I Am UU community deserves. I would like to attend lots of workshops and seminars. I’d like to go to GA and meet some of the amazing people that I’ve traded emails or had video chats with. I’d like to eventually be able to visit congregations as a speaker or to lead workshops. I want to “go big”.

What I am not sure how to do, right now, is to add all of that to the 45 hours a week I am already spending on this ministry, in addition to other obligations. What I cannot do is spend money I don’t have on registration fees and travel expenses. What I need to know is that the community that has built up around the I Am UU project wants to see it continue to grow and to become a better resource. I need your links, your personal stories, your comments on our Facebook posts, and what money you can spare to help me live up to the promise of the I Am UU project.

It is an investment in liberal religion and in sharing Unitarian Universalism with the world. It is about creating opportunities to start discussions about the inherent worth and dignity of every person. I hope to make it easier to explain our goal of a more just, equitable, and compassionate world. I want people to know that we will accept them, no matter what their life experience, and we will encourage them to be their best. If you think this mission could make the world a better place, I ask you to be an active part of the I Am UU community so that we can make it happen, together.

This is my passion. I want the world to know that there is a choice beyond conservative and moderate religion. Liberal religion is an important message, and I want nothing more than to devote my life to sharing it in a way that is ethical, compelling, and personal. At the beginning of the year, I gave myself until May to figure out how to continue to do so.

I am asking for your feedback and your help. I need your submissions to help get some of my time back. I need your engagement on Facebook to help put our posts on more screens. I need your support to educate myself and to further my own spiritual growth, so that I can bring what I learn back to you. If I haven’t earned all of that, then I would love to hear what direction you would like to see things go in.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I look forward to reading your thoughts.

This isn’t a matter of ego, I promise. I am absolutely humbled by the trust and responsibility of over 4,000 people reading my words and sharing my designs. I am working hard to be worthy of it, and to keep improving to be the kind of resource that helps people find liberal religious community. I am blessed to have reached as many people as I have, and it feels very strange to be asking you all for this kind of feedback. That being said, Faithify has a requirement that I explain how my work and my ability to keep doing this, rather than getting a job in a call center or a car dealership, is good for Unitarian Universalism.

The actual phrasing is “How does this project claim Unitarian Universalism” and “How is it claimed by Unitarian Universalism”, and I would love it if you all would help me answer that.

Please leave a comment here with your answer, or if your answer is posted somewhere else (which is wonderful!), please share a link. The idea to make a public ask came after seeing the first blog post about this fundraiser was shared on Facebook by a fan and Patreon supporter. Her words about why she supports I Am UU mean more than anything I could write about myself. It would be so amazing to see other people posting their support for their friends to read, but that is certainly at your discretion. If you do, please post it publicly and share the link with me so that I can read it. I will make sure that you don’t mind being quoted before I share your words.

I am also collecting questions for an FAQ post. Right now, questions include “Where is the money going?” “What happens if goals aren’t met?” and “Will there be rewards as on Kickstarter?” I welcome any other questions that might help people connect and feel good about donating. I want you all to know that I already feel responsible to the community that has built up around my work, and this will only increase that. You all matter to me, personally, and I care about helping you find new ways to express and even experience Unitarian Universalism.
Thank you, in advance,

I recently got a trial subscription to HBO. I would never have asked for it, and I can’t imagine making enough money to ever have added it to my cable subscription; a suscription that I keep mainly because you cannot get decent reception locally, and I really love BBC America. HBO is an incredibly low priority in my life. Since I have it, though, I have been binge watching “The Newsroom”.

I love Aaron Sorkin’s writing. I loved his movies and I have loved his Tv shows since my exwife introduced me to her Sports Night DVDs back in 2001. I found copies of the West Wing up to that point and I watched every episode until it was canceled. As a person who grew up Republican and wasn’t ashamed to call myself one until the 2000 nomination (and I say that as a Texan), I love that the main character of “The Newsroom” is a Republican with fairly moderate views.

In an episode in the second season, he is asked about his party affiliation. He then asks why no one ever asks the question, “Why are you a Democrat?”

I can answer that. The Republican Party stands for things and against things. They have a platform that is full of value statements, if very little policy. The fact that almost no one agrees with all of those statements isn’t actually a flaw. It means that people choose to be Republican because they agree with more of them than not, or, in too many cases, they have a small group of issues that matters so much to them that they are willing to vote against their interest on everything else to support those positions. That is exactly why, as happened in “The West Wing” before, people are asked why they are Republicans.

http://youtu.be/QNoauwt0NE0?t=4m57sThe Republican Party stands for things, and even when Republicans disagree with some, many, or most of those positions, it matters to them to stand for the rest and for it to be known that they would rather stand on that ground and accept the consequences than to move.

Let me say that I have come to understand how dangerous that thinking is. I also know full well how powerful and seductive it is.

The reason that few people are ever asked why they are Democrats is then threefold:

The opponents tend to think in terms of issues and ask about specifics rather than the party; “How can you support more government intrusion?” “Why don’t you just say it is wrong to kill unborn babies?”

They know that the average Democratic voter isn’t loyal to the Democratic party anymore; there isn’t much leadership or vision capable of inspiring loyalty.

Democratic voters aren’t really loyal to the party for the above reason, and so they don’t tend to own the label strongly in the first place.

As the right has moved the conversation further and further to the right, the center has been taken in by the Democrats. More people are calling themselves Independent with each election cycle, fleeing the GOP ranks without committing to the Democrats. They have gladly tried to cater to this ground swell, such that there is no longer a real platform under the party. If every seat is thought of as building material for their platform, every candidate adding either thickness or width to a plank, then they have, to use a phrase, spread themselves thin at the expense of depth and stability. And this, I think, has finally cost them more than it has earned them in an election.

When the Democrats failed to show up with strong opinions and a defense of their leadership, both in the White House and the Senate, people realized that the platform was about to give out. Nothing more could get done, in part because the Democrats had given up on doing them. They weren’t trying to convince people that they could lead, and so the people took away their leadership. It wasn’t that the Republicans made such a better claim, but at least it seemed like giving them a chance might result in something getting done. At the very least, it reminds the Democrats that they owe the public more than platitudes. At least, I hope that it does, because what we need is progressive leadership, and the Tea Party backed GOP isn’t capable of that.

That’s right: I rarely refer to myself as a feminist. I don’t like the term. I don’t think it applies to me. This frustrates my significant other at times, and so I thought I might share my thoughts, because others might find them equally maddening, and that is good for page hits. Let me explain further with a comparison:

I am not gay, transgendered, or otherwise “Queer”. I don’t cal myself a part of the LGBT community, though I fully support their right to be heard and included and their civil rights. I do not have their experiences, and I cannot rightly claim to be one of them. I mess up all the time when talking about the issues of homosexuals, including the fact that many of them now dislike the term “homosexual”. I certainly mess up when speaking about and with transgendered persons and it is nearly impossible to speak about the gender-nonbinary without an introductory lesson in each person’s preferred lexicon.

I am, likewise, uncomfortable calling myself a feminist. I support equality and representation and empowerment, but I do not have the personal experience with discrimination to draw from. I do not have a connection with “feminism” that runs any deeper than my connection with the LGBTQ community: I love these people, and I support them, but it feels wrong to claim to be a part of their struggle. I am an ally for equality and justice, but that is the only label I am comfortable with. It is not that I am against feminism, or even just the word; it just doesn’t speak to who I am or what I am for.

I am an ally for all those people who need to be heard and who need to be treated better. I am strongly against gender bias, and actually against the concept of binary gender even as I am very happy and comfortable as a man. I want my penis to matter less in other people’s valuation of me than what I give back to the world. I want that for everyone no matter what their biology, how they dress, or how they identify. If you think that makes me a feminist, then so be it. I don’t call myself by that term except when it must be defended against people who use it as a slur.

Hello to my few faithful readers. I am honestly sorry that I have not been publishing much here lately, but I have honestly been doing a lot of writing. I am taking 2 on-line classes and I just helped to launch a new website for the I Am UU Project for Unitarian Universalist evangelism and outreach. I’ve been reading, writing, and designing images for the I Am UU Facebook page, which has really taken off in the last 6 months. I’ve got a few other things up in the air, and while I am very excited about them, I am not ready to talk openly about them all just yet.

I was inspired to write this week because Tandi Rogers of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Office of Growth Strategies changed her profile picture, a few days ago now, in celebration of the 30 Days of Love, an annual event from the good folks at the Standing on the Side of Love campaign. Now, we are on day 15, and this was posted by the folks at the SotSoL Facebook page for day 6. It is god to know that I am not the only person who is falling behind on the 30 Days of Love. I did see it before, but I was busy with my own projects, and I didn’t let myself think much about it, I guess, because when I saw it this morning, I knew I had to answer it.

I had to answer it because over the last few years, my faith has transformed me, my life, and the lives of the people around me.

Back in 2008, my life fell apart. I won’t go into the real details, but I was homeless, unemployed, recently divorced after a long separation, and had come to the realization that the friendships of my early 20s were not supporting me in my early 30s. I moved away from those friends and my now exwife and our children, not so very far, but 40 miles is a long way to go when you don’t have a car. I moved in with my ailing mother to take over for my younger sister, who was not managing Mom’s finances and affairs well. I showed up at their door with more food than they had in the house at the time.

I knew I needed a lot of change. I needed a new social life. I needed some direction. I needed change. I had been involved with a Unitarian Universalist church back in college, and while I had stopped attending, I still remembered the joy I had felt in learning about their Principles and mission. I reached out to the UU church in town, and everything changed.

I was contacted quickly by a member who was part of the web-team. While I never did get onto the web-team, her friendship was vital to getting my life back and getting involved with the rest of the church.

I volunteered for everything that I could get a ride to. I let my participation in church make up for the lack of direction in the rest of my life. I knew I was helping make good things happen in my community, both the congregation, and the greater community that we serve. People were being fed, houses built, and we marched for equality. I wasn’t feeding, and I wasn’t building, but I was supporting the organization that made sure those things got done. It started me on my way out of a funk I had fallen into.

After about 2 years of being active, I decided that I was going to take my skills in technology and communications that I couldn’t find a market for, and I used them to reach out to other Unitarian Universalists. I started a Twitter account devoted to sharing positive stories of Unitarian Universalists and the work they were doing to promote our Principles in the world. I connected to other UUs on social media, and they helped me expand my understanding of what the Principles really mean in practice. My understanding of my own privilege became more clear, and I was able to be a better ally for those who had different needs because of their culture, language, their physical limitations, and even their gender (or lack there of).

I also came to terms with many of the negative associations I had for the religion of my childhood. I now feel that I have an even better understanding of the wisdom of the Bible, and the teachings of Jesus and his followers. Understanding that the Bible wasn’t a single book, and that it was ok that there were parts written by different people who didn’t have the same message or story to tell. Each story could share something important on its own; they didn’t have to agree.

I learned to give simply because I had something to give. I didn’t have money, so I gave time. People appreciated that, and it made it easier to give. I realized that even when most people didn’t notice that I had done a thing, they appreciated that it had been done, and I could be proud of making things seem so smooth for everyone else.

My faith has transformed me to be a better person. I firmly believe that. It has made me more accepting. It has made me more patient. It has helped me learn to let go of my frustrations, and to see that all of us humans are just trying to get by, trying to cope with our own desire to be vital in a universe where we are so small. I make my vitality by trying to live up to my faith.

I am grateful for an ex-wife who works with me so that I can spend time with my girls. It takes coordination, and it isn’t always (ever) as much time as I’d like, but I know that I am lucky that we don’t fight about it or compete, and I know that I am lucky for that.